"Leave me," he said. "John succeeds."
The blood rushed to Colonel Tempest's head, and then seemed to ebb away from his heart. A sudden horror took him of some subtle change that was going forward in the room, and, seeing all was lost, he hastily left it.
The two boys had fraternized meanwhile. Each, it appeared, was collecting coins, and Archie gave a glowing account of the cabinet his father had given him to put them in. John kept his in an old sock, which he solemnly produced, and the time was happily passed in licking the most important coins, to give them a momentary brightness, and in comparing notes upon them. John was sorry when Colonel Tempest came hurriedly down the gallery and carried Archie off before he had time to say good-bye, or to offer him his best coin, which he had hot in his hand with a view to presentation.
Before he had time to gather up his collection, the old doctor came to him, and told him, very gravely and kindly, that his father wished to see him.
John nodded, and put down the sock at once. He was a person of few words, and, though he longed to ask a question now, he asked it with his eyes only. John's deep-set eyes were very dark and melancholy. Could it be that his mother's remorse had left its trace in the young unconscious eyes of her child? Their beauty somewhat redeemed the square ugliness of the rest of his face.
The doctor patted him on the head, and led him gently to Mr. Tempest's door.
"Go in and speak to him," he said. "Do not be afraid. I shall be in the next room all the time."
"I am not afraid," said John, drawing himself up, and he went quietly across the great oak-panelled room and stood at the bedside.
There was a look of tension in Mr. Tempest's face and hands, as if he were holding on tightly to something which, did he once let go, he would never be able to regain.
"John," he said, in an acute whisper.